Help To Buy Remortgages.

There are two variations of the government-backed Help to Buy offer, first launched in 2013.

Firstly, the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme was designed to assist people in buying a newly built home. With just a 5% deposit required from the buyer, the government offered a loan of up to 20%, meaning a 75% mortgage was required – which generally enabled borrowers to access more competitive interest rates.

Phase two of the scheme, the Help to Buy: Mortgage Guarantee scheme, was not restricted to new builds, and encouraged mortgage lenders to offer home buyers competitive rates with just a 5% deposit by giving a government guarantee on 15% of the loan. This meant mortgages were generally available for larger amounts, and often at more competitive rates, than they might have ordinarily been based on the size of the deposit alone.

Yes, you have the option of continuing on a Help to Buy mortgage. At Suffolk Building Society we don’t offer mortgages for Help to Buy so you will need to seek a Help to Buy mortgage lender.

You should also be aware if you took out the Help to Buy: Equity Loan only the first five years of the 20% loan offered as part of scheme is interest free: interest fees are payable from the sixth year at 1.75 per cent of the loan’s value, and will increase every year in line with the Retail Price Index, plus 1 per cent.

If you want to remortgage your Help to Buy loan to acquire 100% ownership of your home, and repay the government loan portion, you can access our residential remortgage products – take a look at our mortgage finder to see what we have available.

If you want to carry out a Help to Buy remortgage and repay the government loan we may be able to help. Through a residential remortgage you’ll simply be borrowing your existing mortgage balance plus the funds needed to repay the government loan. As long as this doesn’t exceed 95% loan to value you can use our mortgage finder to see our current mortgage deals.

Once you’ve found a potential new mortgage using our mortgage finder you can carry out a rough calculation of how much your mortgage will cost using our mortgage repayment calculator. You’ll need to know how much you need to borrow to cover your existing mortgage balance plus repay the government loan, along with the new interest rate and how long you think you will need to borrow the funds for.

If you’ve researched your options and decided now’s the time to leave Help to Buy, we’re here to help! You can view the available options by using our mortgage finder and, when you’re ready to apply, we’ll go through the full application process with you.

It’s worth preparing information on your income, financial commitments and expenditure plus we are likely to need to check your credit history. These steps help us, and you, to see whether your mortgage will be affordable both now and should your circumstances or interest rates change in the future.